JENKINS: North County's 2013, through a shot glass darkly

Look, I’m no Nostradamus. Cassandra’s in another league. As a fortune teller, I’m a carny con.

Still, the tradition on this annual turning of time’s odometer is to trance out and go long.

Hung eyes closed, these are my bloody Hail Marys for 2013.

• San (Oh No!) Onofre — In the roughly 31.5 million seconds that remain of 2013, the safety of the stalled nuclear plant with the eerie acronym (SONGS? Of what? Silence?) will not be decided once and for all. Time is short, but nuclear history is long.

Southern California Edison won’t bury hundreds of millions of dollars in sunk costs. It will fight to recoup losses by wringing juice out of these defect-ridden nuclear lemons.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, however, appears to be growing a spine, not allowing a requested partial fire-up. You’re either good to go 100 percent or you don’t go at all, the NRC says. On tap: more hearings.

Prediction: 2013 will be the year when it becomes clear to a critical political mass, not just the Friends of the Earth true disbelievers, that Onofre is dirty, old technology — and must be buried in the dustbin of history.

Before the end of the decade, I see the natives (some of them nude on the beach) dancing with joy, throwing bottles of emergency iodine into Dumpsters.

• Oh my, Eau de Mer! — Unlike nuclear reactors at the ocean’s edge, the Poseidon desalination plant, which is now in the financing stage, will become the next really cool thing, a source of North County identity the equal of Legoland or the Wild Animal Park.

Once this Carlsbad factory of pristine (if expensive) water gets up and running, it will be the mandatory science field trip of all time. Kids will drink it up.

Prediction: Poseidon builds a high-tech, ocean-themed bodega along Highway 101 selling the crystal-clear agua along with T-shirts and mementos.

If it runs something like a Swiss clock, this will be North County’s answer to the Guinness brewery on the banks of the Liffey, a source of natural goodness.

Finally, a coastal eyesore at Encina we can boast about. And drink to.

• Groundhog Dump Day! — When Gregory Canyon first popped up as a candidate for a North County landfill, John MacDonald was North County’s supervisor. (If you don’t remember him, you’re not alone.)

All told (and so, so much has been told), Gregory Canyon has swallowed up more than 20 years. Two countywide votes. Sacramento legislation to stop it. Governor’s veto. Byzantine process only wonks on the clock could love.

Makes me feel ready for a landfill to think I was following every step.

This is the year, we’re told every year, when the silver shovels come out for the modern dump next to the San Luis Rey River.

This year’s no different. The last approval is on the horizon, we’re told. Meanwhile, the smart, well-financed foes promise to fight until Judgment Day.

Prediction: No shovels in the ground, not this year. This running sore on North County’s backcountry will keep running into 2014 when, once again, we’ll be assured this is the year when Gregory earth gets turned.